Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic by Patricia Rice Page B

hid from him as a kid. But she’d always been able to find him, too. He had a strong, unique chi, like Conan. Could the kids do that? Wow.
    Could she tell Conan how Bo did that? She wasn’t even certain she knew the specifics. “He was testing them,” was all she said as she backed out of the drive. Except she didn’t know where to go. “Thank you for offering the laptop. Do you really have something they can use?”
    He snorted. “You’ve seen my place. What do you think?”
    “That I don’t want to go back there,” she retorted. “But if you actually have something they can use, I can take it to their school and leave it with Alexis on Monday. Maybe your good deed karma outweighs your really bad feng shui.”
    She thought a brown cloud floated over his head as he fell silent again.

Chapter 8
    The Dragon Lady didn’t want to return to his house. That burned. He’d offered her free rent and a great house and she didn’t want to go back. He should be thoroughly relieved, but he wasn’t. Why?
    Because she was in trouble, Conan decided. He needed control of the problem while he worked on it, so he needed her where he could see her. Where he could ask questions when he started sorting out clues.
    Which mean he wanted what Oz and Pippa had while they were searching for Oz’s kid. He was officially on the batshit nuts list. He couldn’t communicate and didn’t do relationships. He’d had counselors mutter about high-functioning Aspergers, but he was pretty certain he could read social cues. He just didn’t bother. He didn’t have his brother’s charm and had never seen the point in developing it.
    At least Dorrie wasn’t throwing things at him like Pippa did. Except—the Librarian could be saying she or her brother were dangerous. Did that mean the brother might be alive? With Magnus? All the better reason to keep an eye on her.
    Besides, those kids needed their auntie. Alexis, Brandon, Christopher, ABC—he snorted and wondered if Bo needed the alphabet to remember their names. Would they have named the next one Dorothea?
    “What do we do now?” she asked, reluctantly taking the freeway west.
    “There’s no we to it,” he said grumpily, processing too much information. “Your brother’s e-mail account didn’t hold anything of interest. If we don’t have his computer, I’ll have to hack Air Force servers, which means I need my computers. I can’t watch you and work at the same time.”
    “Don’t you know people we could talk to instead? Do we have to risk arrest?”
    He’d seen her soft cuddly side with the kids. It was starting to blend with her brisk business persona—like the curls continually popping from her tight hairpins. For a brief moment, he focused on the padded cushion of her pink bottom lip, then he dragged his attention back to the conversation. He had to keep his head on his shoulders with this woman.
    “I’m authorized. If I can hack their computers, someone isn’t doing their job, and I’ll file a report—after I’ve found what I want. Have you given what you’re asking any thought whatsoever? If the government reported a helicopter down and it isn’t…”
    She scrunched up her shoulders and a dangling curl shook. “It could have crashed on a desert island. We just need them to look.”
    “Woman, you’re in serious denial!” he almost shouted before biting his tongue when she cringed. “That copter was a result of years of billion dollar research. The feds are all over its disappearance. If it crashed on a desert island, they’d have found it. What you’re saying is making no sense, but if there’s any chance at all that you’re right—that copter has been highjacked . And if we go asking questions and there really is a cover up, we’re walking targets for some real nasty asshats.”
    “Why are you doing this?” she asked, shooting him a fierce glare when the traffic slowed down. “Why did you come to me? If you’re not just humoring me, why don’t